"I don't know. I hate him. I've heard him lecture on Giotto. I
hate him. Nothing can hide a petty nature. I HATE him."

"My goodness gracious me, child!" said Mrs. Honeychurch. "You'll
blow my head off! Whatever is there to shout over? I forbid you
and Cecil to hate any more clergymen."

He smiled. There was indeed something rather incongruous in
Lucy's moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see
the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to
her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman's power and
charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant
is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows
that she is alive. After a moment, he contemplated her flushed
face and excited gestures with a certain approval. He forebore to
repress the sources of youth.

Nature--simplest of topics, he thought--lay around them. He
praised the pine-woods, the deep lasts of bracken, the crimson
leaves that spotted the hurt-bushes, the serviceable beauty of
the turnpike road. The outdoor world was not very familiar to
him, and occasionally he went wrong in a question of fact. Mrs.
Honeychurch's mouth twitched when he spoke of the perpetual green
of the larch.

"I count myself a lucky person," he concluded, "When I'm in
London I feel I could never live out of it. When I'm in the
country I feel the same about the country. After all, I do
believe that birds and trees and the sky are the most wonderful
things in life, and that the people who live amongst them must be